Executive Committee
TOS President
Jamy Ard, MD, FTOS
Dr. Ard is professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention in the Division of Public Health Sciences, co-director of the Weight Management Center and medical director of medical weight management at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC.
In October 2021, Ard was elected as a member to the National Academy of Medicine. Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.
Ard conducts research in clinical strategies to treat obesity and associated risk-factor modification. He also focuses on health disparities and ways to better engage African Americans in effective obesity treatment and research programs. Ard is a graduate of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, where he earned his medical degree. He also holds a bachelor’s of science degree in biology from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA.
TOS President-Elect
Marc-Andre Cornier, MD, FTOS
Dr. Cornier is a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina. He recently transitioned from the University of Colorado where he was on faculty since 2001. He served as the Medical Director of Anschutz Health and Wellness Center clinic in Colorado where he oversaw a large multidisciplinary weight loss practice offering a range of weight loss programs. Dr. Cornier is currently working on growing the weight loss services at MUSC. He actively sees patients, primarily managing individuals with cardiometabolic disorders such as diabetes, lipids disorders and obesity.
He has been funded by the NIH, ADA and VA continuously for over 18 years to study the complex regulation of food intake and body weight and metabolism using a range of tools including brain imaging. Dr. Cornier also highly values his time spent as an educator and mentor.
TOS Vice President
Jacqueline M. Stephens, PhD, FTOS
Dr. Stephens is the Claude B. Pennington, Jr. Endowed Chair in Biomedical Research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center where she has an active research lab in Adipocyte Biology. She is a Professor in Biological Sciences and teaches an Endocrinology course at Louisiana State University every year. She has a strong commitment to service and mentoring of students and junior faculty.
Dr. Stephens earned a PhD in Biochemistry from East Carolina University School of Medicine. She is committed to enhancing the understanding of obesity with rigor and transparency. Dr. Stephens advocates for reducing weight stigma and promotes the benefits of exercise and healthy living practices.
TOS Immediate Past President
Elizabeth Parks, PhD, FTOS
Dr. Elizabeth Parks received her PhD from the University of California, Davis in the Department of Nutrition and she completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Berkeley. She has held academic positions at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. She is currently a tenured professor in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology, within the Medical School, at the University of Missouri at Columbia. She also serves as associate director of the Clinical Research Center in the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science.
The major research contributions of Dr. Parks’ lab emanate from her development of new techniques for use in animal models and in humans to discover how obesity alters the metabolism of food to lead to disease. Dr. Parks’ lab was the first to investigate the transition from fasting to feeding to uncover how dietary carbohydrate contributes to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
TOS Secretary/Treasurer
Diana Thomas, PhD, FTOS
Dr. Thomas is currently a professor of discipline at the United States Military Academy at West Point. She holds joint research appointments at the Columbia University New York Obesity Research Center and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center and serves on the Editorial Boards for the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, PLOS ONE, and Nutrition & Diabetes.
Mathematical modeling aggregates scientific knowledge to describe a cohesive and logical story. As a result, her modeling research has brought together collaborations across many diverse areas such as human body weight regulation, identification of risk for poor pregnancy outcomes, forecasts of obesity prevalence, prediction of changes in body composition and body fat deposition, description of eating rates, prediction of the impact of diabetes regulating medications, and classification human body geometry
Dr. Thomas holds a PhD in Mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Governing Board
William Troy Donahoo, MD, FTOS
University of Florida
Governing Board: Clinical Practice
2024-2026
Emma Adriana Chávez Manzanera, MD
Instituto Nacional De Ciencias Medicas Y Nutricion Salvador Zubiran
Governing Board: At-Large-Mexico
2024-2026
Blandine Laferrère, MD, PhD
Columbia University
Governing Board: At-Large
2024-2026
Jaime Almandoz, MD, FTOS
UT Southwestern University
Governing Board: At-Large
2022-2024
Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, FTOS
Harvard Medical School
Governing Board: Advocacy/Public Affairs/Regulatory
2022-2024
Molly Bray, PhD, FTOS
University of Texas at Austin
Governing Board: At-Large
2022-2024
Michelle Cardel, PhD, FTOS
WW International Inc. and University of Florida
Governing Board: Population/Epidemiology
/Community
2023-2025
Jeffrey Zigman, MD, PhD, FTOS
UT Southwestern University
Governing Board: Basic/Experimental/Preclinical
2022-2024
Ania Jastreboff, MD, PhD
Yale University
Governing Board: Clinical Research
2023-2025
Sean Wharton, MD, PharmD
Wharton Medical Clinic
Governing Board: At-Large-Canada
2022-2024